


Four Sheets To The Wind

by AutumnOcean



Category: Cheers (TV)
Genre: Drunk and Disorderly, M/M, christmas ruminating on loneliness, i could've made this longer and more fleshed out but i pussied out lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23258248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnOcean/pseuds/AutumnOcean
Summary: “Aren’t they always ‘that drunk’ by the end of the night? And why would they be-”“Listen.” Carla rolled her eyes and took on a tone as if explaining something to a small child. “There’s normal drunk, and then there’s Christmas drunk. Look, Christmas Eve is in two days. Norm and Vera are still on the outs, and Cliff doesn’t have anybody. It can get pretty depressing for 'em. get it? They’re just drinking together so they’re not drinking alone.”
Relationships: Cliff Clavin/Norm Peterson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 13





	Four Sheets To The Wind

**Author's Note:**

> In 2017 I got really into Cheers and equally into the idea that Cliff and Norm are platonic life partners in everything but name. I'm one of maybe 3 people on Earth that feel this way. Due to bouts of depression, fear, depressionfear, and general why-finish-it-if-nobody-will-care feelings, I spent 2 weeks on and off working on this and it was like pulling teeth finishing it. It has sat on a flash drive collecting dust... until now. Fuck it, we're in a quarantine, the world might as well see into [Tumblr voice] my twisted mind. Here ya go, leave kudos if you like it, if you don't, don't tell me because I am sensitive, lmao.
> 
> TL;DR It's about the intricate rituals but don't worry, there's no sex because Cliff and Norm are heavily repressed nerds who have to get blackout drunk to even be honest with each other.

Cheers during the holiday season was relatively similar to Cheers during any other season, the main noticeable difference being the lights. Diane had insisted on multiple strings of lights, which were now occupying roughly half the wall socket space in the whole bar. 

The multicolored glass bulbs shined on the throngs of customers that circulated in and out - donning Christmas sweaters, discussing holiday plans, holding newly purchased presents. There was a certain anticipatory feeling in the air. The atmosphere, the culture, the very air was different during this time of the year.  
Like every other season, though, the once packed bar slowly cleared out in the final hours before close, leaving a few small groups. These stragglers, probably finishing up their last drinks, took no notice of the two women weaving around them, tidying up tables and gathering glasses to be cleaned. One of the women did notice something different, though.

Diane glanced toward Sam’s office, then frowned. There was a lack of someone blocking her line of vision.

“Where’s Norman?” she wondered aloud. “He always stays until last call.”

“With Cliff, in the back room,” Carla replied.

“Clifford’s still here? That’s unusual.” Diane’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Doesn’t he have an early mail route? Neither of them enjoy playing pool. It just doesn’t make any sense-”

“They’re getting extra wasted, alright? If you wanna go grab their glasses, fine, but I’m not going in there till I have to. They’re probably four sheets to the wind right now.”

“The expression is ‘three sheets to the wind’, Carla.” Diane patiently explained.

“I know that,” Carla shot back. “But I also know that they’re just that drunk.”

“Aren’t they always ‘that drunk’ by the end of the night? And why would they be-”

“Listen.” Carla rolled her eyes and took on a tone as if explaining something to a small child. “There’s normal drunk, and then there’s Christmas drunk. Look, Christmas Eve is in two days. Norm and Vera are still on the outs, and Cliff doesn’t have anybody. It can get pretty depressing for 'em. get it? They’re just drinking together so they’re not drinking alone.”

“I suppose”, Diane drawled slowly, turning her head to glance down the back hallway. “Although it’s rather sad, isn’t it? The idea of drinking away one’s sorrows, as if things will be different when one’s glass is empty.”

Carla made a face at the table she was wiping down. “Hey brainiac, you do realize you work at a bar, right? That’s most of our customers.”

“I just don’t like thinking of Clifford and Norman feeling that way during the holidays, that’s all.” Diane paused in picking up empty shot glasses and stared at one thoughtfully, as though searching for something within the confines of the alcohol stained glass.

Carla softened slightly, glancing up at the other woman. “They’ll be fine, alright? I’ve been here a few years, it’s just what they do. I’ve tried to drink with them, actually, but they either get weepy or giggly - gives me the creeps. But by New Years, everything’s back to normal. I wouldn’t worry about it.” She moved a tray of glasses to the bar and began wiping down the next table.

Diane nodded, seeming to understand that there was nothing left to say. The two waitresses continued their cleaning in relative silence.

The pool table at Cheers wasn’t the most comfortable surface to lean against, but it wasn’t the least comfortable surface, either. If he was drunk to the point of light headedness (which he wasn’t, obviously, but if he was), it was much more practical than trying to stay upright on a bar stool. The floor under the pool table was fairly unforgiving, but at least he’d had more of a warning if he ended up on it. All he’d have to do is slide down a few feet. There was some appeal to it, Cliff reasoned to himself, if only he could stop the faint buzzing sensation. Where was it coming from? His head? His stomach? He wasn’t sure, his awareness having been whittled down to the rumble of conversation at the bar - which had since quieted to a series of murmurs - and the other man slumped against the pool table to his left.

Ah. There was Norm. Good ol’ Norm. Normie. Normie Norm Norm Norm.

“What?” The person in question asked, and it was only then that Cliff realized that he’d been speaking that last part aloud.

“Ah, nothin’. Except, um,” Cliff turned his head to look at Norm. He took in the slouched posture, the loosened tie, and the half full glass of beer resting beside his hip. What had he been saying? It suddenly didn’t seem important. Mere hours ago the conversation had flowed easily between them. There was talk about sports, talk about work, talk about the holidays themselves (and the bad work Christmas parties that both of them had been subjected to), talk about television, and so on. Now what? All there was left to discuss was Vera’s clearly felt absence and their mutual single status. The lingering loneliness that left them both depressed and willing to get utterly smashed was the theoretical bunch of soap suds circling the drain. Cliff coughed.

“I was wondering if I could have ya beer, there, Norm,” Cliff’s excessive drunkenness made his usual pronunciation of Norm’s name as “Nam” sound more like “Naaaaahhmmm”.

“It’s yours.”

Cliff raised an eyebrow. Norm simply shrugged and closed his eyes. Cliff slowly picked up the mug and brought it to his mouth. It was only once the last of the amber liquid had ran past his lips that he registered the slight click of heels behind him.

“Oh, Clifford. Your friend is completely unconscious yet there you are, still drinking away.” Diane made a tsk-ing noise and bent down, gingerly stacking the glasses around them onto the tray propped against her hip. “Shame on you.”

Cliff sat up, indignant, and opened his mouth to explain that Norm was just resting his eyes when he heard a snuffling sound from the other man. Dammit. Norm was….  
…. pretending to be asleep. They’d been friends long enough for Cliff to know that Norm didn’t snore.

Cliff snorted, and was immediately slapped on the arm.

“Clifford! Oh, you think it’s funny now, but you’re helping me get him into a cab when I come back!” She straightened to her full height, and gave him one last glare before striding over to the hallway's entrance. As her footsteps faded into the distance, Cliff felt a pair of shoulders shaking with laughter next to him.

“Shame on youuuuuuuuuu.” Norm’s exaggerated, high pitched impression of Diane filled the silence in the deserted room. “You are sooooooooo meeeeeeeeeean, Cliff.”

“Oh, stuff it,” Cliff mumbled, trying not to grin. He caught Norm’s eye, and the two broke into snickers. Once their laughter had died out, they turned away from each other. Cliff felt rather than heard Norm fall back, his jacket now slightly brushing Cliff’s uniform. There was that buzzing again, but louder now.

“So, how about -”

“For god’s sake, Cliff, do we have to talk?”

Cliff ran his eyes over the empty space to his right where the glasses had been. There were faint rings of water from the glasses’ condensation still on the floor. He absentmindedly started tracing them with his finger. “Do ya see any more beer? If we’re not drinking, and we’re not talkin’, what do you wanna do?”

He heard Norm’s shrug and a mumbled “s’ppose you’re right.” A minute passed in relative silence, then:

“Hey Cliff.”

“Yeah?”

“Ya wanna get us more beers?”

Cliff leaned sideways so their shoulders were pressed snugly together. “I’m not getting a sleeping man a beer, Normie. Besides, it’s a half hour to last call anyway. Seems pointless to bother.”

Norm pulled himself forward enough to gape at Cliff. “How do you know what time it is? You’re not wearing a watch.”

Cliff tapped the side of his head. “Internal sense of time. Every postman has one.”

“Hmm.” Norm fell back against the pool table, closer this time. They were now pressed together from shoulder to thigh. Cliff took a minute to let himself get used to the sensation. It felt nice, actually. It was half an hour to last call, both of them were drunk and practically cuddling – well, by their standards, anyway – and nobody was talking. What now? Cliff felt his tongue loosen before he could stop it.

“I’m sorry about Vera.”

“Why? She’s not dead.” Cliff shot him a pointed look, and Norm sighed.

“Honestly, I don’t miss her as much as I miss the…. y’know, the….”

“Physical intimacy?” Cliff offered.

“Vera and I haven’t fooled around in years,” Norm admitted. “Although I do miss that too. It’s the companionship more than anything. There was always someone on the other side of the bed.”

“Do you need me to come over and sleep next to ya, Normie?”

Instead of the laughter or objection he expected, Cliff turned and saw that his friend’s cheeks were pink. He looked… nervous.

Well. Wasn’t that something?

“No,” Norm finally answered, staring at his feet. “You probably kick, anyway.”

“Nah,” Cliff responded easily. “I am a light sleeper though. I’ll keep the baddies away from ya, should anyone break in. It does seem,” – and it was at this point in the evening that Cliff lost all control over what he was saying – “like me in your bed is something you’ve been thinking about. Y’know, since you mentioned picturing me during sex.”

Norm visibly turned from pink to red at this. “What? I have no idea what you’re –”

“C’mon there, Norm, ya know, when Carla was dating that Hank fella a few months back, and I was talking about love and stuff, and you went right to –”

“Oh, that. It was a –”

“’picturing me in the sack’, if I recall your words correctly,” Cliff continued on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Which seems pretty forward, if ya ask me.”

“It was a joke!” Norm interjected, rather loudly. “I just wanted to make that crack about your mailbag hanging on the chair. Believe me, Cliffie, I thank the good Lord every day that your mail uniform doesn’t involve shorts. And you’re the one who brought up ‘physical intimacy’ tonight.”

Well, someone had to get the ball rolling, Cliff thought to himself. He turned his head so he could take a good look at the blushing man at this side. As if feeling Cliff’s stare, Norm turned to face him, which brought the two men eye to eye. The slice of air between them seemed to crackle with energy.

“I was just thinking. Y’know, we all get lonely. No shame in admitting that. And hell, physical intimacy –”

“Just say sex, Cliff.”

Cliff now felt himself blushing at the candid words. With only a few inches between their faces, Norm noticed. He raised his eyebrows. Cliff cleared his throat, wondering why it felt like he’d lost the upper hand. Whose court was the ball in? He continued speaking, voice a little lower than it had been.

“Uh, sex, is something that every healthy adult male needs. There’s no shame in being frustrated that you’re not getting any –”

Norm snorted loudly. “As if it’s been a shorter time since you’ve ‘gotten any’ than it has been since I’ve –”

Cliff slid forward until his lips were at Norm’s ear. “If you don’t stop interrupting me, I’m gonna have to pin ya down,” he murmured. He felt rather than heard Norm’s full body shudder and smiled to himself. Good. Now they were getting somewhere. If his phony (and let’s face it, unrealistic) threat hadn’t been enough to prompt a sarcastic quip from the other man, then something was bound to happen tonight. 

He pulled back just enough to meet Norm’s eye once again, leaving himself less than an inch from the other man’s face. No sense in going backwards, after all.  
“I mean, before anyone gets naked, we should try out a kiss, eh, Norm?” He noticed how Norm visibly tensed but didn’t move away, and decided to press his luck further. “Even if you’re bad at it, I can make up for it. Give ya a little practice, too.”

Norm leaned forward a centimeter, letting his beery breath gush across Cliff’s face. The buzzing came back with a vengeance. “You might be good, but you’re not as good as me.”

“Is that a challenge, there, Norm?”

The other man chuckled. “To you, maybe.”

Cliff felt a surge of heat in his stomach. Not bad, Normie, not bad. Ultimately though, he had started this game, and he was going to finish it. “Well, since there’s no objective third party to judge, I suppose we’ll both have to agree to be honest on the verdict.” Cliff stuck out his hand for Norm to shake. “Deal?”

Norm smiled lazily. “Sure.” They shook, and Norm’s hand felt clammy, though Cliff knew that his probably wasn’t much better. He drew back, completely facing Norm. “On three? You count.”

“On three. One, two, th-”

Norm was interrupted by Cliff messily rushing forward and kissing him. Cliff registered his friend’s complete surprise in his posture, and nearly broke the kiss to grin. That was better.

There was a slight bumping of noses, which Cliff probably would’ve noticed had he not been focused on feeling. Norm’s lips were chapped, but they were soft, and moving against his. Norm’s chest was warm and solid. Norm’s arm circled around Cliff’s back, which helped to hold him in place. Norm’s mouth tasted of beer, but Cliff liked beer. He really had no complaints. And Norm was so warm. His head was swimming, and after about a minute, they pulled back long enough to breathe, clouds of their frantic exhalations filling up the space. 

They met eyes, long enough to determine that they were both drunk and vulnerable enough to continue. Norm was the one to move forward this time, and Cliff felt the other man’s tongue enter his mouth. Christ. So they really were doing this, weren’t they? He reciprocated, and Cliff grabbed Norm’s side to steady himself. He began to feel drunker at the intense, heated kisses and the heady, increasingly stronger taste of beer in his mouth. His whole body felt overheated. But it was good. This was good. They needed to do this more often.

Cliff’s whole body instinctively slid further into Norm’s space, causing Cliff’s knee to slam forward into Norm’s leg.

“Shit!” They broke apart, Norm cradling his newly injured leg, Cliff not quite believing that they had gotten that far. Their heaving breaths were the only sound in the dimly lit room. The two met glanced up at the same time.

“Tongue, Normie? Good Lord, nearly gave me a heart attack and a half.”

Norm smiled weakly. “That part was always my specialty. And you with the grabbing, that was-”

Cliff grinned back. “You’re a…. a very solid man, Norm. I underestimated your abilities.”

By then, their breaths had slowed, but a layer of uncertainty still lingered in the air. 

“Let’s say we call it a tie, then, Cliff?”

“Yeah, a tie.”

For a moment, all was silent. Norm began readjusting his tie, nervousness creeping into his tone. “So, that was -”

“Do we have to talk?” Cliff repeated his friend’s previous words. He had a feeling that the moment was lost till next year, but he didn’t want to come down quite yet. He just wanted to sit in peace until Diane came back.

“Nah, guess not.”

“Good.”

“One more thing though, Cliff.”

“Yeah, Norm?”

“Merry Christmas.”

Cliff left the statement unanswered, pondering its significance for a short while. He gathered himself, realizing how rude it was to not respond. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

Cliff rotated his head. Norm’s deep, nearly silent breathing filled his ear. This time he was actually asleep, cheeks still tinted pink from their exertions. Cliff chuckled lowly.  
“And a happy New Year,” he murmured, before succumbing to a deep sleep himself, head propped on Norm’s shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!!


End file.
